18 April 2013

Housing by People (excerpts attached), by John
Charlewood Turner, is a discussion of housing, from a well-educated point of
view, and of where decisive power should lie, who should act, and how all these
responsibilities should be divided up.

Turner’s
book can serve us as a small link to the great, beautiful and necessary field
of study called urbanism, of which very little emerges into the general public
realm. Urbanism is a site of ideological struggle. It is also a labyrinth, in
which it is easy to get lost. Turner, as you will see, refers to “the mirage of development”; meaning the illusion of development.

Turner’s
focus in the two chapters that are given here is on autonomy versus heteronomy,
and on proscription versus prescription. In short, he is in favour of Power to
the People.

Turner is
undoubtedly a partisan of the poor petty-bourgeoisie, and is a very
clear-minded student of, and exponent of, their needs.

For the
partisans of the working class, Turner’s guidelines are therefore invaluable.
They provide insight into the world of a class that is quite different from the
proletariat. The two classes are very close in time and space, even as close as
to be co-existent in the same biological families; yet their needs and outlooks
are different.